A financially sustainable business model that can support both the platform and 3rd-party developers.

Aligned financial incentives between the platform, users and developers.

History shows us that when these two properties are absent from a developer ecosystem, Bad Things can happen. It is because of these fundamental beliefs about what makes a social platform successful and sustainable that App.net was created.

Good incentives for developers, which should, in theory, be good for users. I’m still not sure if most people are willing to pay $50 to share their status. In hindsight, I wouldn’t pay $50 because I don’t think that’s the kind of value I’m getting out of App.net. Yet.